The human heart longs
for perfect and unending happiness, because perfect and unending happiness
is indeed possible: through Spiritual Awakening. The great spiritual traditions
throughout history that refer to such Awakening really mean a literal
Awakening from this mortal dream to a more fundamental Reality. You can
think of it as a spiritual analog to the "awakening" in The
Matrix — only, one awakens to a state of Absolute Bliss, rather than some
dismal revelation about the true nature of things.

What is the fastest
and most direct Way to Awaken out of this mortal dream?

If we want to Awaken
from the dream, we must very intentionally and consistently free up attention
from the dream, and Habits 1 through 6 (of the seven habits described
in this book) have exactly that effect.

Can you do this all
by yourself? Can you go off and Wake yourself Up? In a word: NO!

The reason is simple:
the only reason for freeing up attention is so that we can put attention
on the Waking State instead of the dream state. But: where is the
Waking State? Of course, we’re not going to be able to find it per
se in the dream! What we can find — if we are so Graced — is the form
in which the Waking State is appearing in the dream.

Consider: What form
is the morning sunlight, or the morning conversations in the next room,
or the alarm clock, taking in the dream? If I put my attention
on these special “dream forms”, and begin to recognize them for
what they really are — manifestations of the waking state in my dream
— and allow myself to see them more and more for what they really are,
I will begin to wake up. That is precisely the role of the Spiritual Master,
whenever genuine Spiritual Masters have appeared in this world throughout
history. The Awakened State -- the Divine Being -- intrudes into the dream
in the form of the Spiritual Master, for precisely this purpose — not
fundamentally to teach people, or leave behind a bunch or rituals, but
to literally Wake people up.

Who does what in the
process of Spiritual Awakening?

On the one hand, it
is not “vicarious salvation”, like “Jesus died on the cross for your sins,
and all you need to do is believe”. And on the other hand, it is not a
“do it yourself ” process; it absolutely requires Divine Help. We could
say that the process is in accord with the popular saying, “Let go and
let God.” Only, we’re going to provide a lot more details about what exactly
that expression means!

The way Waking Up
works is that the Awakened State intrudes into the dream state in the
guise of the Spiritual Master. As my Spiritual Master, Adi Da Samraj,
describes it:

I
Appear in the midst of the dreams of ordinary waking life like sunlight
in the morning. While you are still dreaming, still asleep, the
sun comes up. It gets brighter and brighter, and the light comes
into the room. At last, the light, the day itself, becomes sufficient
to wake you, and then, all of a sudden, you are not dreaming, and
everything is all right. I am simply that sunlight process, that
intensification, rising on you always, without any other special
activity. My relationship to you, your living condition of relationship
to Me, just that relationship, is sufficient. There is only sunlight
on the pillow until that Intensity is sufficient to wake you up.

So fundamentally,
our role in the process is to locate, recognize, and cooperate with the
Waking Up Process, as it appears in the dream, and let It do Its work.
This, as opposed to turning over and going back to sleep when we begin
to notice the intrusion of the Light, or as opposed to trying to somehow
Wake ourselves Up (as though that were possible, and could result in anything
other than a different dream state).

If we cooperate, the
Waking Up Process (in the form of the Spiritual Master’s Transmission
of the Waking State to those of us still "dreaming") does the
entire cleansing and re-alignment of the body-mind required for re-balancing
the body-mind, and freeing up energy and attention.

Andy
Lovell, "Augean Stables"
Collyer-Bristow Gallery

Being smart enough
to submit to be so “washed” and “purified” by the Divine Being is something
like the intelligence displayed by Hercules, in the ancient myth of the
Augean stables. For various reasons, Hercules got stuck with performing
twelve “impossible tasks”, that would become famous as “the labors of
Hercules”. The fifth labor imposed on him was a particularly nasty one.
Augeas, king of Elis, had many herds of cattle, goats, sheep and horses
— more, in fact, than anyone else in Greece at the time. Every night the
cowherds, goatherds and shepherds drove the thousands of animals to the
stables for rest. For several years now, his herds had become so large
that it became impossible to clear away their droppings. Over time, the
dung and filth in the stables accumulated to such a degree that a thick
aroma hung over the entire kingdom of Elis, and a pestilence broke out
across the land.

Into this mess Hercules
was thrust, and assigned the task of cleaning out the Augean Stables.
And not just cleaning them out, which was impossible enough, but doing
so in one day! As Hercules raged outside the gate at Mycenae at the impossibility
of the task, his father, Zeus, came to his aid, sending Athena, the goddess
of wisdom, to him in the shape of an old crone. "Why this temper, Hercules?"
she asked. "Has the High King given you a task that is too much for you?"
"Too much for anyone!" he said. "It is to clean the stables of King Augeas
in one day!" "That does sound difficult and rather unpleasant. But it
is not impossible." And Hercules was smart enough to listen to her instructions
and carry them out to the letter.

The
cleansing of the stables of Augeias
from a relief in Rome

Now, near the stables
was the river Alpheus, swollen with spring rain. Hercules made a breach
in the foundations of the stable yard at both ends, and then directed
his great strength not toward lifting out the dung — a truly thankless
and impossible task — but rather, toward diverting the course of the river
into the stable yard. Uprooting a huge tree that grew beside the river,
Hercules dropped it across the stream so that it formed a dam. The river
rose quickly behind the tree trunk, overflowed its banks, and poured across
the fields, through one gap in the stableyard wall and out the other,
over the next few hours washing the yard and all the pasture about it
clean. It was truly a delight to watch! By the time a day had passed,
the stables were completely cleaned out.

The ego — that unceasing
machine of self-centered and self-centering habits — is like the Augean
stables. No human being could possibly “clean it out” by himself or herself,
nor transcend it, since, until Awakening, one is the ego, and (unbeknownst
to oneself) is dirtying the place with the left hand even while trying
to clean it with the right. As Hercules concluded (with a little Divine
Assistance), the intelligent thing to do is find a Divine River nearby,
and cooperate with It, by letting It to do the cleaning and purifying.